Two Arms?
by Samsylvania
Summary: Prior to the mission to collect the Heaven Beetle, Pearl creates small versions of herself and Amethyst dancing and fusing into Opal. When he asks about the difference in arms between actual Opal and sand Opal, he doesn't realize he's getting into what could be a deep emotional rift. (Garnet, Ruby, Sapphire, and Rupphire all make an appearance in chapter 3, I can only add 4 names.)
1. Chapter 1

The question had come seemingly from nowhere - at least, there were no clear indicators as to what could have triggered such an inquiry.

"Pearl?" Steven had come down from the loft to where she sat on the sofa, perusing a battered book of sword techniques. You could never learn too much, right?

"Yes, Steven?" She mentally marked her page before setting it on the coffee table and watching as he pulled himself up to sit by her.

"Can fusions change?"

"Change?" She echoed him for a brief moment, trying to make sense of what he'd asked. "What do you mean, Steven?"

"Like... Can they go from two arms to four arms? Or four arms to two arms?"

She allowed herself a quiet chuckle. "Where is this coming from?"

"I'm not sure. I just remembered that little Opal you made from sand the one day. She had two arms."

Pearl froze. Two arms? Had she really? A quick glance back through her memory confirmed that. How had she slipped up like that so easily? More importantly, how had Steven been so observant? Then again, Opal had been an interesting concept to him from the moment she and Amethyst had mentioned her. The fact that he'd paid such close attention to her explanation and tiny sand demonstration wasn't really surprising in hindsight.

"Well, Steven... You see, Opal, she... Th-the connections between Amethyst and I are... I-" Speaking of Amethyst, the purple gem had chosen that moment to walk out of the temple and into the small beach house. In Pearl's opinion, she couldn't have had better timing. "Oh, Amethyst!" She quickly got up and walked over to her, gently nudging her toward the sofa. "Steven was just asking some questions about Opal, and well, you seemed so eager to tell him about her before! Surely a few more questions couldn't hurt!"

Before she or Steven could ask her what was going on, she had already darted into the temple. The sound of water rushing off her fountains was quite calming as she slowly slid down the wall next to the door. As she held her knees to her chest, her mind continued to analyze the question Steven had asked.

It didn't take her long to affirm herself that she was right in leaving the situation to Amethyst. Her answer would have been much too complicated and emotionally biased for him to have understood.

* * *

"Well, that was weird... even for Pearl." Amethyst took a seat where the alabaster gem had been moments before. "So, what'd you want to know?"

"Did Opal used to have two arms?"

Steven took on a look of slight disappointment when Amethyst had a reaction similar to Pearl's. Instead of darting off however, she simply looked away.

"It's not my place to say anything about that."

"Come on, please? It's just a yes or no, can you at least tell me that?"

She seems a bit conflicted for a while, the air taking on an impatient tension. She eventually caved after glancing over and seeing the eager glint to his eye. "Alright, a yes or no couldn't hurt. Opal might have four arms now, but a little while back? She was rivaling Garnet on fusion scales."

"Really?"

"Mmhm."

"Wow... But if she used to have two arms, why does she have four now?" He knew Amethyst didn't want to say anything, but perhaps getting her to answer on a yes or no basis could have coaxed her into answering something else.

Amethyst put her feet up on the coffee table - being careful of Pearl's book of course, she'd hear nothing but nagging for weeks if she so much as scuffed it - and allowed her posture to relax into a slight slouch. "Sorry Steve-o, we'd need Pearl for that answer, and from the look of things I'm not sure she's ready to handle that. You'd think she would be with all of the stuff she has at her disposal, but whatever. Anywho, want to join me on the boardwalk? We can grab some frybits on the way, maybe scare a few seagulls."

"No thanks, I think I'm going to go see my dad for a bit. Have fun with that, though!"

He hopped off the sofa and quickly started making his way down to the beach and toward the car wash. His dad had told him about the time he'd tried to fuse after meeting Stevonnie, and he'd clearly known the gems before he was born. Amethyst's answer told him it hadn't been long since Opal had gained a set of arms. Maybe he'd have some more answers.


	2. Chapter 2

"Dad?" The car-wash didn't seem to be open at the moment, but he looked inside through the glass door anyway. He'd known his father to fall asleep at his 'desk' more than once, so it didn't hurt to check. Even with the lights off inside, sunlight streamed through the windows, allowing him to see that he was definitely not there.

His next best guess was the van, so he knocked on the back door before pulling it open, his dad lying there asleep among pages of sheet music, some blank, some with hastily drawn notes and scribbled notes.

"Dad!"

Greg jolted awake with a small shout, hand reflexively reaching for his waffle iron. Sheet music flew everywhere with the sudden motion, fluttering out past Steven, who promptly tried to catch them before the wind could carry them off. He returned once he had grabbed them all, climbing up into a free space inside the vehicle (which Greg had cleared after realizing that it was only Steven).

"What's up, Kiddo?"

Steven thought out his words for a moment. His dad had been known to try to hide things from him in the past, so he had to phrase this carefully to get the most information possible. "Dad, you knew the gems before I was born, right?"

Greg raised an eyebrow at that. "Yeah?"

"Did you ever meet Opal?"

"Opal?" The name certainly rang a bell... Oh yeah. "Pearl-Amethyst fusion Opal?"

"Yeah, that's her!" His eyes lit up. Maybe there was something to be found here after all.

He certainly couldn't just leave Steven hanging after that look. "Ready for a story?"

* * *

 _Greg had taken to staying on the beach for the most part. Truth be told, if there were a proper house instead of just the temple, he probably would have been living with Rose. For now, his van would have to do._

 _Rose and Garnet had been out on a mission. 'A small one,' the tall pastel gem had said, 'we'll be back before you know it.'_

 _He'd been expecting their return, eventually. He hadn't been expecting the large BOOM, presumably coming from something crashing into the cliffside nearby. He hazarded a glance through the front windows of the van, a large silhouette rising from a burst of smoke. It let out a roar as Amethyst and Pearl ran up from their place closer to the ocean's edge._

 _He wanted to yell to them not to fight it - the thing was practically five times their size - but by the time he would have been outside and able to it would have been too late anyway. He remained where we was on baited breath. Surely this couldn't go well._

 _You can imagine his surprise then when they managed to hold their own. There was an established systematicness between them, and they worked like a well oiled machine. Amethyst bound it with her whip, Pearl threw spears and slashed at it until the whip broke. When it did she had already summoned another, wrapping it just the same as it had been moments before._

 _Of course they had to have realized that the monster would have caught onto their game eventually._

 _Before Amethyst could bind it again, it moved to the side and ran straight at Pearl. He could hear Amethyst yelling her name just moments before she was sent flying with a swipe of the beast's paw. Or were they claws? He couldn't tell._

 _Amethyst kept it distracted until they could regroup, and something was different about their system this time. Were they dancing? Why would they be dancing at a time like this? Certainly they couldn't be fusing in the middle of a battle, that left them wide open for attack!_

 _Whatever they had done before they'd begun their dance had kept the creature preoccupied just long enough. By the time it came back around, the pair had already merged in a flash of light, and a being rivaling Rose in height stood in their place. She didn't move closer nor farther away, rather summoning a spear and whip from their respective gems. Another flash of light - albeit smaller - and she now held a bow._

 _She pulled back the string as if an arrow had already been notched, and from his vantage point Greg couldn't see whether there was one or not. She let the string loose and light exploded from their attacker's flank (What was with the gems and light? Sure, they're made of it, but geeze) before there was a large poof of smoke and it was no longer there._

 _He darted out of the van and over to her. In the back of his mind he vaguely registered that he had an amazing idea for a new album. The tall being reached down to bubble the gem in the sand before turning to look down at him, the iridescent bubble floating above her left hand._

 _"Who are you?" Greg was panting slightly but forced the question out anyway, stumbling over his words just a tad._

 _Her voice rang with a sense of power, even in it's seemingly quiet volume. "Opal."_

 _He stood in awe for a moment, eyes darting about to size her up. Surely her tone didn't fit her form. In the end he pushed that line of thought aside. "...Do you know who I am?"_

 _She let out a small hmph, the corners of her mouth turning up into a small smirk. "Yes, Greg, I know who you are." Her vocabulary held every bit of resentment and higher standing of Pearl, but her tone held the more friendly aspects of Amethyst. There was something separate from them that was entirely Opal's, though he couldn't quite place it._

 _Her free hand was placed on her hip, just above a long flowing pink sash. She walked en pointe with her small bit of longer hair tied back in a ponytail, a semi-opaque piece of fabric draped around her shoulders._

 _Needless to say, he had quite a few questions if she intended to stick around longer than Rainbow Quartz._

* * *

"But why did she have two arms _then_? She has four now, what changed?" If he's being honest, Steven feels just as confused now as when this story started.

Greg just made a noncommittal noise in his throat.

Steven let out a small sigh. "It sounds like they worked so well together back then... I just wish they could work like that now."

"You really are just like your mother." He pulls him into a hug, noting that the sun had begun to set sometime during his spiel. "You should probably head back to the temple, it's getting late. And hey, don't be a stranger?"

Steven smiles at that, nodding before dropping out of the van and onto the cement of the parking lot. "Seeya, dad!" He ran off back toward the beach, mind still racing around what he'd offhandedly decided to call the 'Opal conundrum'.

There was still one more person he could talk to about it. Who better to talk to about fusions than a fusion?


	3. Chapter 3

Author's note: Apologies for the weird formatting in this chapter, I was attempting to switch from Wordpad to Evernote and that ended up messing with paragraph spacing a bit in the beginning. Enjoy!

* * *

Garnet was already in the beach house when he got there. No matter what future she looked into, they all involved Steven looking for her, so she knew it was unavoidable - at least temporarily. Whether or not she'd be able to distract him from the topic was an entirely different matter.  
Sure, Pearl and Amethyst should try to work this out, but was it really her place to tell them how to handle it? Helping to send Steven after them certainly seemed like she was subtly interfering.  
Oh, well. For now, she threw her inhibitions about it toward the wind.  
"3, 2, 1..." She muttered to herself.  
"Garnet!" There it was. Steven rushed up the stairs and through the door. "Yes, you're here!"  
The fusion allowed herself a small smirk. "Where else would I be?"  
"In the temple, on a mission... lots of places!" He hopped up onto the sofa by her. She had resigned herself to his questioning and leaned back, laying her arms across of the back of the couch behind her.  
"Garnet?"  
"Yes, Steven?"  
"Did Ruby and Sapphire always get along like they do now?"  
She was silent for a moment, her mind delving back to the past for once rather than into the future.  
"...No."  
"Really? Why not? They seem so perfect for each other."  
She smiled and gently ruffled his hair. "That may be so now, but it wasn't when they first met."  
He looked up at her, his gaze tentative but probing nonetheless. "Can you tell me about them?"

Oh. Well, she supposed she couldn't blame him. Every experience he'd had with them alone up until this point had been a negative one. If there was ever a time to let him get to know them, telling him herself could be the best bet for now. He'd get to know more of the cryptic duo without her having to unfuse. A perfect compromise.

"Lieutenant Ruby?"

Ruby turned, hastily saluting. She'd been dozing and didn't have time to process the voice speaking, so better to be safe than sorry.

The taller gem giggled. "At ease Ruby, you know how I feel about things like salutes."

"Oh, y-yes." The red gem lowered their hand, averting their gaze. "I tend to forget."

"I know, it's fine." Rose smiled. She was clearly excited about something. "Ruby, I did a bit of looking around, and I've found you a new potential partner!"

Ruby groaned and dragged a hand down their face. "Rose, no offense, but every partner you find for me leaves within the week. They either say that they can't work with such a hothead or I end up burning them, or-"

"Ruby."

"Or we end up fighting, and- oh, by the way, I'm sorry about that dent I left in the wall last month, that tourmaline was _really_ getting on my nerves - or some other ridiculous-"

"Ruby!"

The smaller of the two jolted a bit but stopped their small rant, realizing they'd started to melt the metal under their feet. "Argh!" They stepped away from the smoldering material and paced a bit, trying to clear their head.

"Ruby, I know you've had bad matches in the past. Granted, most of those were my own fault so I'm sorry about that, but I truly think this one could be something great. This one isn't like any of the others."

"Who is it?"

Rose turned toward the door as if to call for whoever it was to enter, but the doors were already opening before she could utter a single word. The tall gem hummed in response to this, clearly pleased for some reason.

The gem that Ruby saw standing there certainly seemed different. Her expression was almost completely stoic, her uniform a rich ultramarine. She entered the room and walked over to stand by Rose, if the motion could even be considered walking. It seemed more like floating than anything. Even though her gaze was hidden behind a curtain of icy blue bangs, Ruby could feel her watching them.

"Ruby, this is Sapphire."

Oh no. No no no no no. Sapphires were known for their quiet decisiveness, their studiously hidden emotions.

And Ruby couldn't stand them.

"You've got to be joking."

"Why would I be?"

"Rose, she's a Sapphire! I can barely stand other Rubies, but she's a corundum too! Gems of the same mineral don't mix, this is going to be a disaster!"

Sapphire's mouth twinged into a small frown. A thin sheen of ice began to form over her hand but it quickly melted before either of the others could notice it.

"Ruby, Please... give her a chance?"

They looked up at her for a while before sighing and turning away, begrudgingly giving in.

Rose smiled. "Fantastic! I'll let the two of you be so that you can get acquainted with each other." The door clicked shut behind her as she took her leave.

Sapphire tentatively walked over to them. "So, you're a Ruby?"

"You say that like it isn't obvious." They rolled their eyes before heading back over to the control panels along the wall, seeming to go back to working on whatever it was they did here. Sapphire had been briefed on it, but she couldn't quite remember if the system had a name or not.

"I was simply attempting to initiate a conversation. You're tense and I thought it would alleviate some of the strain between us."

"One conversation ain't going to fix that."

"Perhaps not, but one conversation tends to lead to more. With time it could dissipate. Like Rose said, we could work well together."

"Oh, so you believe that too, huh?"

Sapphire took a place at the console. "Yes. I do."

"Well, besides her, you're the first. Not exactly a good track record to live up to." Ruby's hands flitted over buttons and keys with ease. Sapphire attempted to pick up the flow where she could. It was slow going at first, but she managed to work out a relatively smooth rhythm. It would work for now.

It was many years before they spoke to each other again. They both worked silently, barely sparing the other a glance. Perhaps begrudgingly was a better word to describe their attitude toward the situation.

Ironically enough, Sapphire was the one to break the metaphorical ice.

"In theory, corundums such as ourselves should work seamlessly together."

Ruby groaned and leaned back in their chair. "You're still on about this?"

"Yes, Ruby. Our gems are one in the same. If nothing else, we should be able to at least tolerate one another." The blue gem swiveled to face her. "I may not know who you are yet, but if this is going to work there has to be mutual effort. I'm willing to try to make this partnership function on some level. The question is, are you?"

Silence.

Ruby had gone still.

They'd never had a partner speak to them like that. Even so, they brushed that aside. There was truth in her words, and they slowly relaxed their posture.

Were they ready? They'd had so many failed partnerships, it was hard to keep track of them all. They were reluctant. Reluctant to try again, reluctant to give their all, reluctant to have it all slapped back in their face. It had been a vicious cycle.

'This one isn't like any of the others.' Was this what Rose had meant? They'd never met a Sapphire like this, so she was certainly different there, but the way she handled their prospective partnership... that was definitely something new.

Before they realized it, Sapphire was standing before them, a hand outstretched. It was a silent offer, and an even subtler question.

Ruby stared at her hand.

Then rose to her feet.

Then grasped it.

"I might regret it... but to hell with possible regrets. I'll give it a shot."

A small smile graced Sapphire's face.

Ruby had never seen her smile before! It was a sign of hope, a sign that maybe things would work out better this time. She grinned a bit herself, allowing a rush of excitement to run through her. She remembered too late that strong emotion brought searing heat with it and went to pull away, eyes wide - only to have the grip on her hand strengthen.

A pleasant chill ran down her arm, just enough to cool the heat there. Sapphire could feel the warmth of her palm and felt that sensation in much the same fashion.

Ruby was aghast. Ice? Is that why the room had been frozen over so many times before? They'd assumed it had just been the ventilation acting up again, even though they were certain they'd fixed that months ago.

"There are a lot of things you don't know about me, Ruby," she said quietly, already aware of the question that had sat on their tongue just moments before. "Just as there are plenty of things I still don't know about you. But with time..." She brushed aside her bangs with her free hand, revealing her single eye and meeting their gaze. "We can learn."

"Mom was the reason they met?"

"Mhmm. I suppose we both have her to thank for me even existing."

The boy grinned, hugging her. He quickly remembered what he originally asked her though, and pulled away again. "It sounds a lot like Pearl and Amethyst are acting like Ruby and Sapphire used to, sort of." When Garnet didn't respond to that, he tried a more direct route. "What happened between them? From what dad said, they used to work so well together. Opal used to have two arms!"

So Greg told him about that, then.

His question certainly wasn't an easy one to answer. She already knew they'd been too careless with their word choice before when speaking of Rose. She didn't want to deepen that damage and tell him that his birth had been the end of the fuse that split them.

Rather than give her voice the chance to betray her on that end, she simply shrugged. "It's not my place to say, Steven. Opal is the embodiment of the two of them, not me."

He groaned and flopped back on the couch. "That's almost exactly what Amethyst said, I'm back to square one!"

It's wonderful yet frustrating how ideas tend to come to you at the last minute.

"Wait. If Opal is the embodiment of them..." He shot up into a sitting position. "I'll just ask her!"

She didn't have the heart to tell him that talking to Opal would be next to impossible.

"Pearl and Amethyst are in their rooms."

"Thanks, Garnet!" With that he was off like a rocket, the temple door opening into Amethyst's room with the sound of particularly sticky gum.

She sighed softly once the door was shut. Time to look for possibly distasteful futures.


End file.
